Mozi

Mozi was an ancient Chinese philosopher and founder of Mohism, which championed universal love (jian ai), meritocracy, and opposition to wasteful rituals and aggressive warfare. He was one of the most influential thinkers of the Hundred Schools of Thought, offering a systematic ethical and political alternative to Confucianism.

Mohism was distinguished by its consequentialist reasoning: an action is right if it benefits the most people. Mozi also developed one of the earliest traditions of formal logic and argumentation in China, though Mohism declined sharply after the Qin unification.